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So I had to share this picture, not because of the main message (though it’s still true), but because the image itself struck me. Look at the ground she walks on: Dry as a desert. There are walls of water on either side, but they don’t come down on her. Sometimes, we go through “desert times,” seemingly inhospitable and dry, and we feel abandoned. Perhaps sometimes, what we don’t see is the torrent on either side, the raging waves we walk through that don’t crash down and take us under. Sometimes the paths God leads us on seem hard, even impossible. But these are the ways to be thankful for, because on these ways God is leading us right through the midst of chaos that would otherwise overwhelm us, even destroy us. He is a good Shepherd, who walks with His sheep wherever He leads them, so we can take heart in this as well: Desert or dry ocean bed, we are never alone.

The other day, I was minding my own business when the Lord, as He often does, spoke up to tell me something I needed to hear. It was actually a question: What are you being saturated by?
I’d actually had a pretty rough day, the kind where all these relatively little things added up to a very frustrated me. I was completely flooded by my own negative thoughts; I had allowed myself to soak in my funk all day. I had to choose instead to allow myself to be saturated with God’s presence, to soak in His word instead.
This is true of life in general. What do we allow ourselves to be saturated by? The past? Present circumstances? Pain? Offense? Fear? The things we are full of are the things that will pour out of us. It’s a daily choice, I’m finding, to be in the flow of His word and Spirit, so that praises pour out instead of complaints. We all need to get things off our chests sometimes, of course. But I find that when I’m full of nothing but negative comments, it’s because I’ve allowed my mind to dwell on unlovely things for far too long in a day. I long to be saturated by the presence of the Lord 24/7, so maybe others will get soaked by the river around me.

So last spring, I received a little fuchsia starter as a gift from a coworker. I have to say that I’ve always loved fuchsias, especially the kind I got: white flowers like frilly petticoats under smooth, bright pink sepals. The thing about fuchsias, though, is that they’re picky. In fact, the only kind of flower I can think of that is more of a diva than a fuchsia is an African violet (side note—how did those things ever survive in Africa?). Fuchsias don’t like to be too dry or too wet, too hot or too cold; seriously, they are the Goldilocks of flowers. Mine didn’t ever get big and bushy, but I managed to get it blooming like crazy—huge, lovely flowers every day for weeks—and it wasn’t dying… at least until summer really hit. After multiple episodes of inadequate watering, over-watering, heat waves and vacations leading to general neglect, it was looking pretty sad. I was just waiting for the poor thing to die at this point, though continuing to water it every so often; I had written it off as a failed gardening attempt. But it just kept hangin’ on, so I figured it was only mostly dead, and I’d call it all dead when it was all brown. So I kept watering it, and it kept trying to hold up its leaves, it kept trying to put out new flowers every few days, it didn’t dry up and die. Then I went out this afternoon to check on it, and there were little green leaves, fresh and new, growing out of the dry brown twigs. I already couldn’t understand why it was still hanging on, but to have new growth after such a terrible season?

I’m betting we all, at some time, have felt that we were in a place where we couldn’t prosper or grow, where it seemed impossible that we should survive, let alone thrive, yet God never gave up on us. He continued to pour into us, to coax us to trust Him again, to keep holding on. Even when we feel mostly dead, He still sees life in us and believes in us, no matter what circumstances caused us to wither.

God spoke to me the other day about hope, and my little potted plant just drove His point home to me. I had asked Him if it was even ok to hope about certain things, and what He told me was that I could always hope. But I must hold onto Him and not the hope itself, for He is the true hope, and the fulfillment of every dream He has for me is in Him. When my hope is in Him first, then I can see the light when there’s darkness; then I can withstand the heat and the cold, the dry times and the floods, and bloom when it doesn’t seem possible. Then I can overcome every false identity—weakness, frailty, shame, lack, misery, fear, death—and become who He has always said I am. And the dead leaves will dry up and fall off, and new growth will appear. If I can have a little faith in a potted fuchsia, how much more does my heavenly Father have faith in me? When our hope is in Him, we won’t be disappointed, but we’ll thrive.

You don’t understand how much I love you.
You don’t understand how the joy I felt as soon as I had conceived of you in my mind drove me to form you, or the way your first breath and cry made my heart swell and my feet dance. Nor can you fathom how excited I was when I made the earth and everything in it, knowing one day, the perfect day, you would walk in it. I saw you before you were, and I couldn’t wait for you to become—
You don’t understand how much I love you.
You can’t imagine the sorrow in my heart, knowing I’d given you the gift of choosing everything I Am, but that you would reject it—reject Me. I raise the sun even when you aren’t looking and I never get tired of searching for your heart, nor of opening mine to you—
You don’t understand how much I love you.
You don’t know just how far I reached through space and time to pierce the darkness that blocks My light from your view, to shatter the boundary between your heart and my love, to offer you My hand, forever. I will never give up on you, no matter how far you run or how deep you dive, no matter what you say to My face or what you do when you believe My back is turned to you—I never turn my back on you—
You don’t understand how much I love you.
My heart sings when you turn to me, when your heart reaches for mine, when your spirit worships in truth. You reach up to Me, and I am already there with you; you cry out to Me and I have already heard it. You bask in My presence and let My love overflow in your being until you think you should burst, but this is only a glimpse, a taste of my passion for you. I made you for Myself, and all that I make is good. I know who you are, I wrote a wonderful story about you, when I dreamt of you before the foundation of all things. I made you out of faith that you are able to be and to do all I imagined you could—
You don’t understand how much I love you.

At night, and especially in the rain, everything can look very different. Streets you’ve driven many times look unfamiliar, the lines on the road become hard to distinguish among the many reflections from streetlights and businesses, and even though you know where you’re going, suddenly it seems like getting there has become more challenging.

This will be honest.

A friend of mine recently asked me why I seem to have changed so much in the past few months, and I realized tonight (while driving home, in this midsummer weather bummer) that part of it is because my life has become very unfamiliar to me. A lot of changes have happened in my life in a relatively short span of time, and I have been grasping for something that feels like the way things were; something familiar, from what I think of as a good time in my life. Even though it’s the same road I’ve been on, a turn somewhere brought me into the night; the lines on this road are harder to see amidst the distractions and deceptions coming from the side. I feel alone on this road, and I’m nervous about driving it. Suddenly the path I was sure of has become foreign and even frightening. Suddenly, I feel like I don’t know where I am.

I realized the things I’m grasping for are times and seasons and places that I have passed through, but can’t get back to, or things that aren’t here yet that I keep hoping will be. What I’m missing, what I’m really looking for, is something unchanging. I hunger for that place that can be reached from anywhere I am—I want the peace, the quiet stillness, the presence of my Father.

I’ve also realized the quiet is something I’ve come to dread. All my fears find a voice there, and all the worries begin to shout in the silence, and the many things I feel I must do to keep occupied suddenly seem so very important. I ride the wave of the clamor right past the secret place into more chaos, and the things I do just to keep busy really just keep me cluttered and confused. Then, when the desire to meet God in my prayer closet becomes so strong I might actually act on it, I feel guilty or ashamed for having put Him off, and so continue to put Him off (which totally fixes the problem..?). Yet in the times when I find that place, and the voice of the Lord breaks through with a blast of peace, I remember the comfort of His presence and the joy of His word. He is the solid ground I’m looking for while this ground seems unstable. He is the light that shines without distortion, though the night is dark and the rain is heavy. When I live by His presence, I find the road I’m on to be one I’m able to travel, regardless of how hard it is. I am reminded that I’m not driving alone, either in my own vehicle or as the only vehicle on this road.

I am also reminded in these times, when I allow the Holy Spirit to refresh and strengthen me, that there is no time or place in life when I can’t seek Him. Another friend of mine was recently talking about “getting to that place” where she can find God again, and when I opened my mouth to reply, the Spirit came out and said, more or less: “You don’t have to get anywhere. Find Him where you are, because He’s seeking you where you are.” How often we think we must be a certain way, or change certain things, or find a new circumstance, before we feel like we can come into His presence again. God is always where we are, right there with us. Certainly He wants to lead us into new places—but it’s impossible to be led by someone who isn’t there, so how can God be elsewhere? This brings a whole new dimension to that familiar phrase, “Be where you are.” You can’t live in either your past or your future, for better or worse. You’re not what you were, nor what you will be, but you are, here and now—and so is God. Find Him where you are, without fear or shame, without regrets, without reserve; and let Him find you, every part of you. Whether you feel completely lost or completely on track, seek Him; He already knows the road you’re on.

So I never watch Church TV, but this morning I turned on some TV Church programs, just because. I ended up flipping through a couple, all with good, smart, biblically-sound teaching. I ended up on a channel with a Youth Pastor who was preaching something different, and I noticed a trend: the “grown-up” church teachings were all about little nuggets of wisdom and power that can be mined out of the Scriptures and applied to everyday life, but this youth service was all about how God loves. This Youth Pastor was talking about how, of all the weapons in God’s heavenly arsenal, the one He chose to use to save humanity was Love; he went on to to talk about how God saved him from his pit, how God is not angry or disappointed in everyone, how He loves. And it struck me as odd that the message of God’s love should be reserved for the young and the new believers, as if it is something to be moved on from in favor of “higher” teachings.

Now there is certainly a maturity that must be developed as one grows in the Lord. In Hebrews 5, the writer talks about how those he writes to should be graduating from basic teachings, from “milk” to “solid food.” The love of God is foundational to living a life following Him; He doesn’t make sense without it. The basic, foundational things should not be discarded, however, but built upon. God’s love never becomes obsolete, as if one could spirtitually upgrade past the need for it. To the contrary, as one grows in the Lord, the knowledge of His love should increase rather than diminish–as if the God who is Love could ever change.

My Pastor has been talking recently about how we are like dogs in that God has given each of us a passion to pursue that one thing He made us for—like a dog has a passion for chasing a ball. A person in the Lord is like a well-loved dog: we aren’t afraid of not being fed, we’re content to just be in the Master’s presence, and we certainly come running when He picks up our ball. But so many of us forget all the love of the Master and instead live like distrusting cats. We hide, we avoid the Master; we cry out for fear of not being fed, or of being left alone, or of being locked in or out of the house. It’s because we forget just how much affection God has for us, how much He loves us.

Deeper understanding and a more mature mindset are certainly part of growing in the Lord, and we must lay aside immature ways of thinking and put down misconceptions. But God’s love is not something anyone can grow out of; it’s something we’re supposed to keep growing in. So don’t forget the basics you are building on: “For God so loved the world…”

My site here is called “Be in the Flow”, and some may be wondering why; I have. It did sound good when I named it that, but I didn’t just want a name that sounded cool or catchy, I wanted a name that described what this blog is about. So, what is “The Flow” and why should anyone be in it?

The flow I’m referring to is a river that comes down from the throne of God; it flows through His city and His people; it’s His presence and all that He is. We were meant to always be immersed in it, in Him, but something went awry in the beginning: we rejected the flow. We turned to what we could manage, to deciding what is right and wrong, to holding others to our standard. We exchanged the flow of the river of God for the bog of our own understanding.

In the biblical temple of the nation of Israel, the Holy of Holies was separated from the people behind a great thick curtain. Behind the veil in this place rested the Ark of the Covenant, the tangible representation of the Presence, and no one but the High Priest, and only once a year, could go in before it. When Jesus’ spirit departed his body in death, the earth shook violently, the sky darkened… and the veil was torn in two. No longer would the Presence of God be confined and hidden from His people, but because of the one sacrifice of the Christ, God became accessible again.

Many people think being a Christian is only about being a good person and going to heaven when you die, but that’s not it. It’s about regaining access to God directly, living in the flow of His love and power, experiencing a life out of heaven right here on earth. There is nothing separating you from Him! Nothing is in the way, nothing can keep you from Him. He desires you to be in the flow, always.

This word about the presence is resonating throughout God’s church; the presence is the one thing God wants His people focused on. For a much more eloquent and powerful word on this one thing, please follow the link below!

This is just a little something that came to me a little while ago, and I will eventually elaborate on it. Any feedback or constructive criticism would be appreciated!

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I love visiting my grandma. Most kids do, I guess, but my grandma’s not like most grandmas; she’s a time traveler.
My grandma sometimes thinks we’re other people, or looks for other people who aren’t there. She talks about things she has to do that she doesn’t, or acts like she’s in places she isn’t. Whenever I ask my mom why, she says, “Grandma’s somewhere else right now. We just have to wait for her to come back.” It confused me at first, because she couldn’t be somewhere else if she’s still right here in her chair. I decided she must be a time traveler, but only her mind time travels; she hasn’t figured out how to make her body go too. She must be trying really hard to figure it out though, because she’s gone more and more.
One day, when she had come back, I asked her why she liked going to the past so much, and why she didn’t like it here. She said she loves us very much, and she didn’t always go on purpose, but most of the times she visits are good. She goes all the way back to when she was a kid like me, and her mom was there; she misses her mom. I would too. She said she also goes to good times like her wedding day with Grandpa; he’s in heaven with her mom, and she misses him a lot. I asked her if she could go to the future instead of the past, and maybe then she could visit them there, but she said it wouldn’t work. She said, “I’ll go that way someday, but when I go, I can’t come back. Maybe I will go soon, but then you’ll have to wait awhile to see me again.” I told her she should go, since she misses them so much, and she would even get to see Jesus for real; that made her smile.
I told my mom what Grandma said, and how she seemed so happy about seeing everyone again. My mom seemed really sad, even though she tried to smile, but I don’t know why. I thought she’d be really happy, but I guess she would just miss her mom. I know I would, and then I was really sad thinking about it.
The nurse from the big house my grandma lived in called two days later, and my mom started crying and saying Grandma was gone for good. I was sad that I wouldn’t get to visit her anymore and hear her stories, but I was really happy she finally got to go to the future and see Grandpa and her mom, and even Jesus. There was a big church service that weekend, where everyone celebrated my grandma and talked about her life. There was a big box at the front of the church, and everyone walked by and said things to it, and some put their hands in it. I wondered what was in there, and when we got up to it, I saw my grandma! I was really sad, because I thought she’d travel there for good, but now she would have to come back for her body. I asked my mom why she left it behind, because didn’t she get to take it with her to the future, to heaven? But my mom said, “No, sweetie, no one takes their body when they go to heaven. We only need it here on earth; we get a different one there.” I was a little happier then, and I whispered to my grandma’s old body, “I bet you’re even more beautiful now. I’ll see you later, and tell Grandpa hi from me.” She must have been so happy when she left, because she was still smiling.

Thomas gets a bad rap. He is known as that disciple who needed proof, who doubted and had not enough faith; in fact, you have been mildly insulted or chastised if anyone has ever called you a “Doubting Thomas.” Someone once told the story of Thomas in a way I had never heard before, and I have never forgotten it.

Thomas was in fact a devoted disciple, as much as the other disciples. It was Thomas who, upon the insistence of Jesus to go to Jerusalem for Lazarus, despite the Jewish leaders’ threats against him, voiced to the other disciples that they should go with him even to death (John 11:16). Thomas, like the other disciples, loved Jesus, and had given up everything to follow him: his family and friends, his security, his own will. Like the other disciples, and virtually every Jewish person in that day, he had a certain idea of how the Messiah was to fulfill the Scriptures. He believed Jesus to be this Messiah, and was more than willing to give up everything and follow him. He saw Jesus do miraculous things, including raise the dead; he heard him say things no one had ever said; he challenged the religious leaders, and loved those rejected by them. Thomas followed and believed Jesus for the years of his ministry, and was waiting for that day when the kingdom of Israel would be restored, and Jesus would be its King forever—

But then he died.

After Jesus was arrested in the garden, Thomas waited—as Jesus was tried, beaten, condemned and crucified, Thomas waited—for Jesus to do something miraculous. Thomas waited for him to call the legions of angels, to call upon God himself, to let him down from the cross and show the Romans, the Jewish leaders and all the people who he really was… but he didn’t. He died.

Days later, when the other disciples came and announced that they had seen Jesus alive, Thomas felt he couldn’t afford to hope in so great a thing, and determined he should see the Lord for himself before he ever believed again.

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:24-29 ESV)

The end of this passage is often quoted to chastise the doubting. After all the years Thomas had followed Jesus—known him, loved him, believed in him and given up everything for him—he died. Thomas’ heart and spirit were utterly broken, and he felt like he had nothing left—certainly not hope. It was out of despair that Thomas feared to believe in so great a thing as the resurrection of his beloved rabbi and savior. And it was out of compassion, and not condemnation, Jesus answered Thomas’ heart, because Jesus knew his heart.

Perhaps you’re in a place where you feel God has left you high and dry, where every promise of His you’ve ever believed has come to naught, and you feel you can’t trust to hope that anything will ever change for the better. Maybe you’re out upon the waters and your feet are failing, and you’re afraid to cry out to God, for fear or shame or downright despair. Remember it was He who called you out upon the waves, and whom you believed enough to go. You can cry out to Him, without fear of condemnation, “I believe! But help me in my unbelief!” Because God knows the heart can only take so much, He is always there to heal the cracks and wounds, to soften it, and to fill it and fill it again. He loves us always, always believes in us that we are and can become more of the person He made us to be. When your eyes have been on the waves so long that you’ve forgotten His love, He will not hesitate to show it to you again, and to embrace you with those hands that bear the scars of it. So do not disbelieve, but believe.

SO I have been thinking a lot lately about faith, and God has encouraged me strongly to “walk by faith and not by sight,” especially in this season.

It irks me when people talk about faith as though it must be the opposite of reason, but human beings were created to operate in both.

People often say that “faith is blind,” that it’s like walking to the edge of a cliff with your eyes closed and then concluding you must jump and hope something catches you.

That’s not faith. That’s ignorance.

Faith is walking to the edge of a cliff with your eyes wide open and saying, “Ok, God, You said there’d be a step here for me,” and taking it, regardless of whether you see it or not. If He didn’t say that, then stop and listen for His voice–don’t just jump.

Faith is believing what God says–even if you don’t see it, or it doesn’t look how you expect–and believing it because you trust that He is who He says He is. Not walking by sight means trusting His Word more than what you see, not simply ignoring what you see altogether.

So I’ve written before about all the stressful things that are going on in my life; it is crazy hard and frustrating right now. I had had it with one thing after another cropping up without reprieve, and was wallowing in this despair one day recently when suddenly, as I was preparing eloquent complaints in my mind, I heard very clearly: “What do you want people to know about your life?” That stopped me dead in my thoughts; before I share my answer to that question though, I’d like to share this:

If anyone ever suffered for the sake of the gospel, surely Paul did. He was ridiculed, slandered, imprisoned, beaten, shipwrecked, threatened numerous times with death, and generally lived a fairly miserable life after his journey on the road to Damascus. Yet he writes to the Philippians (most likely from Rome during his imprisonment): “…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13). Paul’s secret was trusting God and relying on His strength, in every circumstance, no matter what it looked like. Some people say faith is blind, but that’s not true at all. Faith does see, yet it does not rely on sight but on revelation from heaven. Paul went to Jerusalem on purpose, even though he knew terrible happenings awaited him; one prophet even bound himself up with Paul’s own belt as a prophetic gesture to the imprisonment Paul would face (Acts 21:10-11). Paul had a heads-up that after Jerusalem, things would not be so fun for him; and yet, in response to the pleading of his friends, he says: “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). Paul had his eyes on the Lord, and was determined to allow God’s glory to be brought through him no matter what happened.

It’s not easy to hope for what you can’t see; to keep your eyes fixed on the Lord and not on the trials. How hard it must have been for Paul, not knowing if this imprisonment would be to his death. We all hope for things to change for the better, and we know God can do miracles, but what if He allows us to be tested, as He did Job? What if He wants us to bring glory to Him in terrible dark places? To show the enemy that our praise and worship of God isn’t because of what we get from Him, but because of who He is?

Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (better known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) faced this dilemma. When ratted out by malicious Chaldeans for not worshipping Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, and threatened by the king with death in the superheated furnace, they responded (honorably) to him thus: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18, emphasis added). The three of them were resolved that no situation or outcome would sway them from worshipping the Most High God, even if it meant death for them. What if there is no rescue, no healing, no deliverance? Do we love and trust the Lord so much that we pray, like Jesus did, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39)? Do we really want glory brought to His name more than anything else? This kind of faith, this kind of living, is not easy. It cannot be done without the power of His Holy Spirit, His strength in us; it can’t be done without daily being immersed in His presence, falling more in love with Him, dying more to ourselves.

And so, as the question of what I want people to know when they look at my life echoed in my mind, I realized that I don’t want people to know how poor and miserable and pitiful I am, sucking the life out of every conversation and relationship. My spirit rose up in me then with a desire for people to know instead how God is always faithful, always good; how He is trustworthy, and gracious, and powerful, and worth all of the suffering there may be ahead of me: for the people who would see Him clearly for the first time because of His light shining from me, illuminating His face for them, and for the glory that might be brought to Him through it all.

Hebrews talks about how all those great faithful people of the Bible never actually saw the fulfillment of the promises made to them while they lived on the earth, but they were not dismayed because they knew they were part of something huge, bigger even than their whole lives; something that had eternal significance. This is what they had faith in; this was their hope.

This is why I am striving to be joyful in my life, no matter what it looks like. By no means have I even begun to live this way. But my heart and my eyes are set on Him, as I slowly let my own desires die, because really, my life was never supposed to be about me anyway.

So many people, when they think about approaching God, imagine something like this:

But God is actually more like this:

God wants to be with you.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.[…] (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

God is Love.

He Loves You.

Seriously.

He is The King; He is mighty, powerful, and worthy of honor. But His everlasting, unconditional love must be understood first; without it, He doesn’t make sense.